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China’s record of 30 years of 10% annual GDP growth creates an illusion of continuity. In fact, its political and economic systems have endured a series of dramatic crises that threatened to undermine or reinvent the China model, but instead, reinforced the boom. “Reform and opening” itself was born out of the CCP’s legitimacy crisis following the death of Mao Zedong, and early reforms were justified by the need to rapidly catch up with East Asia's newly industrialized countries. The Tiananmen crisis of 1989 initially triggered state repression, but ultimately led to a renewed burst of marketization and privatization. The East Asian financial crisis of 1997-8 reinforced Bejing’s caution about fully opening its financial system, but also spurred even greater foreign trade, and foreign exchange reserve accumulation, in the 2000s. The global downturn of 2008-9 exposed China’s structural imbalance, but massive stimulus spending and a cheap currency allowed China to export its way through the downturn, once again giving policy-makers confidence that each crisis was an opportunity to advance the China boom.

An Opportunity to Question the Whole Existing System

Period: Inheritance

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  • An Opportunity to Question the Whole Existing System

    Luo Yan

  • People Who Fall Behind Will Be Beaten

    Cai Guoqiang

  • China's Opacity Protected it from Crisis

    John Bussey

  • No Dispensation from The Laws of Economics

    Stephen Roach

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Meettheexpert

Luo Yan

Actress

Luo Yan is a popular actress in China. She was twice nominated for the Hundred-Flower Award, China’s equivalent of the Oscars, for the films The Student Dormitory and The Girl in Red. She got her BA from the Shanghai Drama Institute in China and her MFA from Boston University. She produced, wrote and starred in Pavilion of Women, based on the book of the same name by Nobel Prize winning author, Pearl S. Buck. The film was also successfully distributed by Shanghai Moonstone International, a distribution company owned by Luo since 1995, in 888 theaters in China and received the highest box office record for China co-produced films for the year. Due to the film’s success, Luo founded a film marketing and distribution company in China, Moonstone China.

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I think that changed the entire generation. It also changed the thinking mode. It changed the way you think, the way you look at life, the way you look at doing things, everything has changed. Also, because of their background, because these people had been blocked out for a long time, they desperately wanted to learn, they observe things very quickly and they apply it immediately and they work very hard because there had been a terrible lack of opportunity. If you look at the class of '77 until '80, these three years of students now occupy all the major positions in China. Anywhere, in government, private enterprise, they all occupied the key positions in China. I've discussed the effectiveness of the Cultural Revolution with my friend many times. I would say what happened with the Cultural Revolution is that it smashed down all the existing system or at least gave us an opportunity to question the whole existing system. Then, you are making your own judgment and since we observed so much information, different way of treating life, different way of looking, different way of doing, you try to figure out what’s the best for yourself, for your country, or whatever. So, that somehow related to today's economic boom. I would say that the Chinese people have never been as free thinking in the entire history as today. Before, you followed the king, you followed the authority. You have never questioned authority because the system made you that way.

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Cite this Source >>
“An Opportunity to Question the Whole Existing System | Luo Yan | The China Boom Project.”
The China Boom Project.
The Asia Society Center on US-China Relations.
1 June 2010.
Web.
09 May 2025.
<https://chinaboom.asiasociety.org/thread/40/103>.
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